Associate professor of history at Central College Timothy Olin will release a new book, titled “The Banat of Temesvar, Borderland Colonization in the Habsburg Monarchy,” in early February. 

The public and Central campus community are invited to hear Olin read from his book and ask questions from 5:30-6:30 pm on Thursday, February 6, in the Boat, Moore, Weller Rooms in the Maytag Student Center, on Central’s campus. The book explores the establishment and development of a multi-ethnic frontier society on the Habsburg – Ottoman border, in the historic region of the Banat (today divided between Romania, Serbia and Hungary). After it passed from Ottoman to Habsburg control in the early 18th century, the Habsburgs sought to settle the region with Western and Central European migrants, mainly though not exclusively, German-speakers from the Holy Roman Empire. Olin argues this policy led to destabilizing demographic changes and laid the foundations for the ethno-religious tensions that characterized the region through the twentieth century and beyond.

Olin’s book is published by Stanford University Press, and is available to be purchased at the link here.